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New glass data storage that could “survive the human race”

Signal of change / New glass data storage that could “survive the human race”

Scientists at the University of Southampton have created a new data storage method, which uses nanostructured glass and 5 dimensional (5D) laser writing. The small discs, which come in a size of a coin, are said to store 360 terabytes worth of data and last for 13.8 billion year. Researchers have so far preserved important documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Bible. According to them, the next stage is to see whether this technology might be taken up by companies so that it can be brought to the wider market.

So what?

Data storage mediums to have been created so far have been susceptible to “data rot”, which means that data can become corrupt or no longer readable due to the device it has been stored on. The emergence of data storage that could compactly hold large swathes of data and be resilient to deterioration for billions of years could change not only how we store personal and historical data, but also how much information we are able to pass on to future generations. Will this become the new mainstream way to save your favourite photos and important data? What other benefits could we gain from storing data in this way?